Igor Sotelo wrote:
Wow, I got a recommendation from Sony Canada to get the Sony A7R IV (or III, or II), the 200-600mm 5.6-6.3 G OSS and FE 2x to shot the moon. Was thinking to get the A7R II anyways, but it's surprising the same Sony didn't notice the A7R IV and 200-600mm incompatibility.
No worries Igor, for static shots or really anything not involving fast action focus-shifting tracking, your recommended combo will be amazing. I’ve got some incredible moon shots with RIV and 200-600
I decided to reach out to Sony support myself. I don't think anything will come of it, but maybe having enough people reach out can result in some sort of escalation. I'll let you know if I hear anything useful.
I have an A7Riv but not the combo. I was thinking that if it was a CPU issue, wouldn't it affect the 100-400 gm as well? How can a CPU be sufficient with one lens and not with another?
A possible explanation could be that at 600mm DOF is much shallower than at 400mm and AF fine tuning requires extra CPU power. But again, 600GM f4 works fine on the A7Riv with even shallower DOF (f4 vs f6.3).
jtra wrote:
FYI: I have added one more item to my post: Turn off Anti-Flicker.
I have no idea if the CPU load theory is valid. It is quite likely that there are independent processing units for AF and the rest so it will have no effect, but I proposed a way to measure that. I have no A7Riv so I cannot test it.
baltmin wrote:
I have an A7Riv but not the combo. I was thinking that if it was a CPU issue, wouldn't it affect the 100-400 gm as well? How can a CPU be sufficient with one lens and not with another?
A possible explanation could be that at 600mm DOF is much shallower than at 400mm and AF fine tuning requires extra CPU power. But again, 600GM f4 works fine on the A7Riv with even shallower DOF (f4 vs f6.3).
The 100-400 is a GM lens versus the 200-600 G. That's one possible explanation though the 200-600 works fine on the a9(ii). Another plausible explanation is the the smaller aperture of a 200-600 makes accurate af on the a7riv more difficult, whereas a 600 f/4 is sufficient? There are other theoretical reasons though I think they are less important than finding solutions.
Spent another day trying out this maligned combo...once again my new set of settings turns this combo into a workable bird photography tool. I really don't understand. No, I haven't updated my FW.
This set is all one burst, no missing shots...granted fairly heavy crops so DOF is easily coving the swallow but still the body/lens got all in acceptable focus. Wide AF, TS 3, OSS OFF, MS, H+
Did it do this good in every burst?...heck no...not even the A9 does this good in every swallow burst. But before this was hopeless with my previous settings.
arbitrage wrote:
Spent another day trying out this maligned combo...once again my new set of settings turns this combo into a workable bird photography tool. I really don't understand. No, I haven't updated my FW.
This set is all one burst, no missing shots...granted fairly heavy crops so DOF is easily coving the swallow but still the body/lens got all in acceptable focus. Wide AF, TS 3, OSS OFF, MS, H+
Did it do this good in every burst?...heck no...not even the A9 does this good in every swallow burst. But before this was hopeless with my previous settings.
Excellent job, Geoff! Now, is the any difference between mechanical and electronic shutter plus any difference between OSS off and OSS 3 that you can distinguish? Just your hunch, please... if you don't feel confident whether it would make any difference between them. Thanks!
AGeoJO wrote:
Excellent job, Geoff! Now, is the any difference between mechanical and electronic shutter plus any difference between OSS off and OSS 3 that you can distinguish? Just your hunch, please... if you don't feel confident whether it would make any difference between them. Thanks!
I don't think I'm noticing any difference between OSS OFF and 3. I left it OFF for the swallows as was at such a high SS. Earlier I was just birding birds in trees and had it on 3 and that was working. In the past I've found that even Mode 2 might be okay and others have said they've had success with Mode 2.
I also don't feel that MS vs ES is making much of a difference. Only if I'm handholding and dropping my SS down to 1/400 or slower and shooting perched birds do I think ES helps remove some vibrations. At faster SS, I think MS is just as good as ES.
I also tried some shooting today back at wide open to see if stopping down was really any part of it. I seemed to have good results wide open also but a bit more slight misses if DOF shifted just back behind the head/eye.
I really think the biggest thing is OSS mode. That is what I had thought months ago and then for whatever reason I had a few bad days even though I was using OSS 2 or 3. Then I'd sort of given up on the combo and didn't try with it much. It has just been the last 2 weeks where I've been spending all this time forcing myself to try it and I still don't really know why it is actually working for me right now??
Maybe tomorrow I will go back to OSS 1 for a little while and see if that is the biggest factor.
I just can’t handle the stress of constantly wondering if any of the shots are sharp with that combo. Virtually every combination of settings and scenarios I’ve now thrown at the RIII and 200-600 have turned out so great I’m having fun shooting again instead of grinding over whether I’ve chosen optimal settings for that finicky beast.
I’m now concerned that they’ll fix it and I’ll have to grind over whether to upgrade again or not
Iv'e owned used non VR/IS long glass for years at a fraction of the cost of current models with great results.
That said I don't see how the R5 + adapter will compete with A9/7R4 - 600 F4 performance. Iv'e never seen anything like the keeper rate possible with Sony gear.
What's the keeper rate on your A7RIV with fast action?
Bryan Crowe wrote:
I totally get that.
Iv'e owned used non VR/IS long glass for years at a fraction of the cost of current models with great results.
That said I don't see how the R5 + adapter will compete with A9/7R4 - 600 F4 performance. Iv'e never seen anything like the keeper rate possible with Sony gear.
Iv'e owned used non VR/IS long glass for years at a fraction of the cost of current models with great results.
That said I don't see how the R5 + adapter will compete with A9/7R4 - 600 F4 performance. Iv'e never seen anything like the keeper rate possible with Sony gear.
That’s why I haven’t sold the farm, yet and still have one a9. If the R5 produces a hit rate better than the a7riv and near the a9, then I’ll probably go with Canon. Supposedly adapted EF lenses perform well on the R system (smart marketing) and eventually people will switch to R as their lenses age or with the release of more compact offerings. $12k for a 600 f/4 is prohibitive for most folks and given that one can buy a used Canon 600 f/4 II for $5-6k or a 500 f/4 ii for less than that the R5 becomes very appealing. If I had a Sony 600f/4 and an a9ii I’d be out living large, but I don’t. Liked my a9 with the 200-600 though I wasn’t 100% satisfied with the lens - had some CA, couldn’t get it to work well with tc, and it was iffy on the a7riv. In the interim, I used an adapted Canon 500 f/4 which produced better IQ but with an af penalty. I moved to sell off gear to save for a 600 f/4 and then the R5 emerged. The bottom line is we’ll have to see how the experiment it pans out and if the R5 doesn’t deliver, I’ll continue to save for the Sony 600 f/4.
armd wrote:
The bottom line is we’ll have to see how the experiment it pans out and if the R5 doesn’t deliver, I’ll continue to save for the Sony 600 f/4.
According to Alex Phan it doesn't keep up with the A9 and according to youtubers it does....
If you can lend and test one, please let us know your findings!
I tend to agree with you, but the concept of a lens only having a certain resolving power isn't the proper way to think about it. The Lens and the sensor has MTF curves, while the System MTF = LensMTF*SensorMTF.
That being said, it is likely that the system MTF (200-600 + a 61 MP camera) is not getting a noticeably better image than a lower MP camera such as the Sony A9.
The Nyquist Frequency of A7RIV (with its 3.73 um pixel pitch) is 134 lp/mm, and A9ii (with its puny 24 MP) still has a Nyquist of 85 lp/mm, while Sony only publishes MTF curves up to 30 lp/mm. If you look at Sony's MTF chart for the 200-600 @ 600 mm @ f/8. the Tangential MTF Curve @ 30 lp/mm is already down to ~65% Contrast and edge of image, while for the Sony 600 mm f/4 MTF, for example, is still >95% at edge of image at 600 mm, shot wide open.
Because Sony does not publish MTF beyond 30 lp/mm, we would have to rely on 3rd party published measurements (some sites / blogs do their own measurements). It is easy to extrapolate that if @ 30 lp/mm we already losing significant contrast we are not going to be able to resolve 100+ lp/mm, esp when you factor in the Sensors MTF (hits 0% at Nyquist, but is pretty low past 70-80 lp/mm) which is multiplied by the lens' MTF.
And on top of all of that, OP may be hand holding the camera in which case the SystemMTF = LensMTF*SensorMTF*JitterMTF where JitterMTF is from the motion of unstable hands. And on top of all of that, because the 200-600 is a f/6.3 lens they may be shooting at a high iso which is also hurting their resolving power. If you had infinite SNR one could resolve at MTF = 0.01, but at iso 1600 on A7RIV (for example, I haven't measured this) one might need an MTF > 0.2 to resolve a detail.
So in Summary, the worse the Lens MTF, the higher the iso, and the more handshake the lower the resolution is going to get. So if comparing BIF or Airshow shots with the 200-600 compared to a 600 f/4, or comparing to statics on the 200-600 at iso 200, there is probably going to be a big difference if pixel peeping.
I’m now concerned that they’ll fix it and I’ll have to grind over whether to upgrade again or not 